TC Rear Inner Wheel Arch Fixing

[SteveW]

I have a question for which I should have probably taken some photos, but I'll try to describe it without and see where I get.

Firstly, due to lack of space, I'm building the body tub on the chassis rather than on a separate jig. As most of you will know, the body irons bolt to the chassis through front, centre and rear mounts (page 174 of TCs Forever). The central one is an outrigger which, when the tub is bolted on, is located below the rear door pillar (i.e. the one that forms part of the rear wheel arch).

As far as I can tell, I have bolted the body irons to the chassis in very close to the correct place as defined by where the front of the tub stands with respect to the scuttle/bulkhead. However, this means that the back edge of the outrigger protrudes into the wheel arch by maybe 3/4". This in turn means that it fouls the inner arch when I try to put it in place. My questions are therefore:

I) Is it normal for it to be like this and, if so, do I have to cut a bit out of the bottom of the wheel arch to correct the problem (I would probably need to trim about 1" off half of the width).

ii) I could solve it by moving the whole of the tub backwards along the chassis as much as would be possible with the slotted bolt holes. However this would put the front of the wood further away from the bulkhead. At the moment, I don't have the rubbers that go between the front of the bulkhead and the triangular mount on the chassis, or the rubber that goes between the bulkhead and the front of the wood. My second question is therefore 'how thick are these rubbers?' If I know this, then I can work out how much it's acceptable to move the tub rearward on the chassis.

Hopefully this all makes sense. I have to say, building a TC tub is the hardest DIY thing that I've ever tried to do.

Steve

[jabawok1]

I too am struggling to build my TC tub with only a few timber parts replaced. At the moment my outriggers protrude into the wheel arch by about 1/2" but I'm nowhere near achieving the correct dimensions for the door opening yet. I have the 'original' rubbers and they are 1/4" thick. This is the car's second rebuild so I cannot be 100% that they came out of the factory that thick.

[timberstone]

Having just matched the body coachwork with the frame skeleton on Boxley, after a full frame off, here is what I discovered:
Yes, the rubber pieces are each 1/4" thickness. Get new pieces that are not pre-squeezed. - and it does not help when bolting bulkhead and body coachworks together to tighten the mating bolts too tight because it just squeezes the rubber and distorts the metals
Yes, there is some room to move the body coachworks front to back and back to front on the mounting brackets because the holes for both the body and the brackets are big
No, please do NOT cut any metal from the wheel arch unless the arch was defectively configured by an aftermarket (if that is your case) manufacturer
Question: Are the wood pieces (3 in number) on the front of the body coachworks, where these match with the bulkhead, the correct thickness? I have seen thin, thick and medium thickness pieces of wood here. If you need to fill in the gap at this joint, then suggest thicker pieces by about 1/4" so that the bonnet is not out of adjustment with the scuttle rubber joint.
Also, there is some movement of all pieces when the whole project is allowed to finally sit on all wheels even on a completely level floor of shop or garage, so do not expect to make the final adjustments until all tires are planted firmly on the ground.

[Michael Ponsano]

I am running into the same problem with the fitment of the inner wheel arch. The outrigger protrudes into the space by about 1/2" with the body irons all the way back. Also, as well as the dumb iron. The three wood pieces that make up the arch are cut and fit the sheet metal arch and body. What if any was the resolution of the problem?